Yearly Archives: 2012

In which the author scores with H.P. Lovecraft…

 

The shortlist for the THRESHOLDS International Feature Writing Competition has just been announced, anf amongst the list of tehn is an essay penned by yours truly on the fantasy and horror writer H. P. Lovecraft.

 

THRESHOLDS describes its mission as, “to promote and celebrate the reading, writing, study – and pleasure – of the Short Story.” In January the website – which is run by the University of Chichester – launched its first-ever writing competition, for essays that explored either a single short story or a story collection, or a profile of a short story writer. Given that I was around ten or eleven years old when Lovecraft’s weird vision changed my life for ever, HPL seemed the natural choice.

 

Out of the hundreds of entries, ten have been selected for the shortlist, with a further fifteen noted as ‘Highly Commended’. The winner will be announced on Wednesday 25th April. All the shortlist, including ‘Geoff Holder: We Recommend H.P. Lovecraft’ will be published on the THRESHOLDS site over the next few months.

 

And if you are unfamiliar with the works of Lovecraft, may I suggest you follow in the footsteps of Alan Moore, Ramsey Campbell, Neil Gaiman, Clive Barker and Stephen King and other devotees of the Sage of Providence, and dive deep into his world. Within weeks, you’ll be wanting to own a plushy of Great Cthulhu. Not that I got one for Christmas, oh no. (Sob.)

 

 

In which the author picks up two spiffing reviews on www.paranormaldatabase.com…

 

The extensive website www.paranormaldatabase.com has just given very positive reviews to both Haunted Dundee and Paranormal Cumbria.

I was particularly pleased that the reviewer singled out the quality of the bibliographies:

 

“One of my old college lecturers once joked that if he had his way, the grade of any publication would be based on the size of the bibliography. Using this method alone would guarantee Haunted Dundee came top of the class, and fortunately Geoff Holder’s writing style ensures he deserves to be there.”

 

As I tend to bang on about the deficiencies of many paranormal books when it comes to their ‘critical apparatus’ – bibliographies, references, indexes and so on – it’s pleasing to find that someone else shares my opinion that proper books deserve proper documentation within their pages. In many cases, the phrase “no bibliography or index” sends a chill down my spine, as all-too-often it carries the unstated implication: “the book under review is a pile of poo…”

 

As for Paranormal Cumbria, www.paranormaldatabase.com states:

 

“Each paranormal field is written about in an honest, no nonsense style that applies an Occam’s razor approach – many paranormal writers could learn from this.”

 

I use Occam’s razor every morning. It makes for a nice, clean shave. (Hey, I can do endorsements if I so wish.)

 

You can see the reviews at and they are also here and here. My thanks to Darren Mann for permission to reproduce the reviews.

 

In which the author adds another ‘Fortean Freak Out’ podcast and does a book signing in Carlisle…

 

 

Carlisle, I see you. On Saturday 21st April I’m doing a book signing for Paranormal Cumbria at the Waterstones bookshop, 66-68 Scotch Street, Carlisle. I’ll be there from 11am to 3pm, so come along for a chat – but if you can’t make it on the day, call 0843 290 8217 to reserve a copy of the book and I’ll sign it for you to pick up later.

 

Paranormal Cumbria covers subjects such as the Cursing Stone of Carlisle – which brought beliefs from the Middle Ages into the Millennium – plus witchcraft and folk magic, twentieth-century sightings of fairies, examples of psychic powers, the phantom airships of World War One (which seem to be cultural precursors of the phantom UFOs of later decades), and the enduring mystery of the ‘Cumberland Spaceman’. The book has been covered recently on both BBC Radio Cumbria and Lakeland Radio.

 

And talking of matters Cumbrian and strange, the next edition of the Fortean Freak Out podcast is up and running, and its subject is taken from Paranormal Cumbria – the infamous Vampire of Croglin Grange. Which was probably not a vampire. Listen to my conclusions here.

 
 

In which the author talks vampires in Manchester and travels in the duophobic lift…

 

This weekend past I was speaking at the Manchester Monster Convention, which was a blast. My talk dealt with two so-called ‘real life’ vampire cases, while other speakers and authors covered the waterfront in terms of werewolves, psychopaths, dragons, cryptids, zombies, and, uh, Japanese zombie whales. We watched clips from the forthcoming Yorkshire-based zombie horror film Before Dawn, and stayed deep into the night to take in a brilliant triple bill of Island of Lost Souls (1932, with Charles Laughton as Dr Moreau, and Bela Lugosi as the half-man Sayer of the Law – wooo!), The Whisperer in the Darkness (a top-notch adaptation of a Lovecraft story by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society) and Reel Zombies (in which a bunch of Z-grade filmmakers craft a rubbish zombie movie during an actual zombie apocalypse). Many thanks to Hannah, Linda, Linda and Rob for the invite and the hospitality.

 

There was however a bizarre episode at the venue. Delegates and speakers alike would venture into one of the lifts – and not be seen for many minutes afterwards, making talks start late and overrun. The reason? The main convention venue was on the second floor, but if you pressed the button for that level, the lift would take you to the third floor (while sneakily telling you were on the second floor). Subsequent attempts to return to floor 2 resulted in the lift ascending to the sixth floor (indicated as the fifth floor) before jostling between floors, including the basement. As a consequence people found themselves wandering around random corridors in the Hotel of Lost Souls…

 

 

The lift only had a problem if the first button to be pressed was for floor 2, so the malign intelligence that controlled it was clearly duophobic…

 
 

In which the author heads to the far south – Manchester…

 

What has Manchester ever given us? Well, let’s see, there’s Joy Division, and New Order, and the Happy Mondays, and the Chameleons, and the Durutti Column, and John Cooper Clarke, and Alberto Y Lost Trios Paranoias, and Magazine, and Doves, and the Smiths, and Frank Sidebottom, and the Passage, and the mighty Fall, and the mightier Van der Graaf Generator…

 

But apart from some of the greatest musical artists of our epoch, what else has Manchester given us?

 

Well, how about the Manchester Monster Convention? Two days of talks, films and discussions, featuring, inter alia, Doctor Who, zombies, cryptozoology, horror fiction, graphic novelists, an H. P. Lovecraft movie, serial killers – and yours truly.

 

The MancMonCon is the brainchild of an organisation called Hic Dragones, which is Latin for that most famous of descriptions on ancient maps, ‘Here Be Dragons’. Good name, good name.

 

The Convention is at the Sachas Hotel, near the Arndale Centre in central Manchester, on Saturday 14th and Sunday 15th April. Tickets are a measly £10, and on the Saturday I’ll be ranting on about ‘Tales from the Crypt – Two “Real-Life” Vampire Cases’, with a book signing for Paranormal Cumbria to follow. I’m still trying to work out a way of smuggling a Fall/Mark E. Smith joke into the talk….#

 

Full event information can be found on the event information page!

 
 

In which the author appears on the wireless…

 
 

 
 

A few days ago I appeared on UKPN (UK Paranormal Radio/Paramania Radio), and for two hours chewed the Fortean fat with Gary, Darren and Stuart, and a good time was had by all. My thanks to the three musketeers for inviting me on, and, with a fair wind, I may find my way back to the show later in the year.

To listen to my ramblings and witterings about everything from stone circles and Nessie to bodysnatchers and vampires, go to

 

http://paramaniaradio.com/On-Demand.php?ondemanddir=UKPN%20Radio.